Müffling Map (1834)

The map of Müffling's survey was created in 1834 and thus about 35 years after Schroetter's survey. Due to the improvements in cartography and surveying technology, the map is a clear advancement compared to Schroetter's survey. This concerns the accuracy of the location of the map elements, the representation of the elements, the standardisation of the representation and the uniform coverage of the entire map sheet with information. The increasing standardisation of the signatures benefits the evaluation in this respect.

The progress in surveying technology is reflected in the improved accuracy of the recording. The total area of the Curonian Spit in square kilometres is 163.02 km² on the Müffling map, about one tenth smaller than on Schroetter's map, where it was 184.19 km². As a result, the extent of the Curonian Spit on the Müffling map is about the same as on the subsequent maps of 1859/60 and 1912.

Comparing the Müffling map with the previous map from the Schroetter survey, it is first noticeable that the proportion of sandy areas, with around 49%, is significantly lower than the 80% of Schroetter's survey. In addition, there were at least three large areas in Schroetter's survey where only sand determined the entire width of the Curonian Spit over longer sections. These areas no longer exist in the map of 1834.

The settlement areas and the forest areas have been largely preserved in the map of 1834 in terms of their percentage of the total area and location as they were in Schroetter's survey. Thus the forest areas in the Müffling map make up about 8.27 % (Schroetter's Land Survey: 8.26 %). The correlation that forest areas are primarily located in the vicinity of settlements can also be found in the Müffling map.

On the one hand, the proportion of the area with herb/shrub cover has changed massively in the Müffling map, rising from 2.2% in Schroetter's survey to 26.35% in the Müffling map. A similar development can be demonstrated for the proportion of grassland (incl. sparse tree cover), which increases from 0.95% to 8.63% in the map of 1834. The other area shares, such as those of wetlands (1834: 4.73 %) and agricultural land (1834: 1.14 %) are relatively stable in both maps.

The difference in area shares between Schroetter's Land Survey and the Müffling map has two particular differences: On the one hand, there is a significant shift in the area shares of only three types of land. Areas with low and light vegetation gain at the expense of the area of sand. On the other hand, the changes in the map image take place especially in areas that do not directly border the settlement areas.

Methodological note: The explanatory map description refers to the derived form of the map, which is shown on the left. For this purpose, the land use type or the ecotope was derived from the signatures of the original map and presented in a summarised map. In this form, the height information was completely omitted, which is why it is only taken into account here in the form of additional information. This information relates in particular to the distribution and form of the dunes that are so characteristic of the spit.